Shamu Goes Out With the Tide: SeaWorld CEO On Its Abrupt Change -- And What Comes Next

When he became CEO of a very troubled SeaWorld last spring, Joel Manby wasn't sure he actually would need to end the killer-whale shows that had ranked as a leading American tourist attraction for decades. His predecessor was sacked after the documentary Blackfish tarnished the public myth of happily tamed orcas named Shamu living to entertain audiences at SeaWorld, yet Manby took the job thinking that the business model might be salvaged.

But last week Manby -- and SeaWorld -- finally succumbed to the new reality. The company announced that SeaWorld parks would gradually phase out their iconic orca-trick shows over the next few years and begin a difficult transition. The new mission of the parks in Orlando, San Antonio and San Diego would be to provide "experiences that matter" by leveraging a marine-life conservation theme, instead of thrilling audiences to expertly choreographed play between human trainers and natural killers that could gut their masters within seconds if they chose to.

"We built the brand around Shamu many years ago and made people fall in love with killer whales," Manby told me, "but now the paradox is that it's one of the leading reasons people are uncomfortable with SeaWorld."

SeaWorld simply had to announce a phase-out to the shows, he explained, because of Americans' rising suspicions that that these well-trained animals were being mistreated merely by being captive. The company was scrambling to preserve the past; it even had SeaWorld employees posing as animal-rights activists to try to infiltrate the opposition, a practice that Manby ended in February.

Sun Belt vacationers increasingly were bypassing SeaWorld; regulators were encircling the shows; and investors were continuing to punish the $1.4-billion enterprise.

"The world is moving in a different direction," Manby said about the abrupt corporate paradigm shift. "Society is changing and moving in a different direction, and we needed to get ahead of it. Our research showed it would be a losing battle" to continue the shows in the face of this rising tide of hostility.

So the company will end all orca breeding programs, meaning the last generation is now in SeaWorld's care: 29 killer whales from 1 to 51 years old. It is phasing out the theatrical orca whale shows and will allow the remaining animals to live out their years serving in "new, inspiring natural orca encounters," the company said. SeaWorld said it won't release the whales into the ocean because they likely would die.

All of this follows the backlash from Blackfish, the 2o13 documentary which told the story of Tilikum, an orca that killed a SeaWorld trainer in 2010 and two other people in the 1990s. Animal-rights groups stepped up pressure on SeaWorld to change its business model, sometimes demonstrating outside the parks' gates, and some top musical acts dropped out of SeaWorld-sponsored concerts. Southwest Airlines dropped its marketing partnership with SeaWorld in 2014.

Manby came to the top job at SeaWorld in April after a well-regarded, 12-year turn as CEO of Herschend Family Enterprises, a smaller company based in Atlanta that nonetheless is America's largest family-owned theme-park and entertainment concern. He'd always been a big fan of SeaWorld and of animals.

"And what I felt looking from the outside at SeaWorld was that it was a really good company that was getting a bad rap," he said. "There was a lot of false information, and a lot of the narrative against the company was unfair, and I felt like they needed someone to come in and really fight for them in the marketplace. And all of that was true."

But soon after taking over from interim CEO David D'Allesandro, Manby found out that the SeaWorld built on Shamu shows already was too far gone to save. "I admit that I came in thinking, 'It's just a movie,' and just radical people who were against large animals [being] under human care. But what I found is that it was increasingly a mainstream kind of thought process."

Meanwhile, other animal-centered entertainment brands were dealing with similar pressures. Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus is retiring all its touring elephants to a 200-acre conservation center in May, for example, and Manby consulted with circus chief Ken Feld about that brand's tough decision. Feld "told me that after mourning the loss for about 30 days, the organization signed on to the new direction and is on fire," Manby reported.

Besides, Many maintained, "We really don't think it's a 180-degree-change kind of thing" for SeaWorld. "We've always been an organization with this [conservation] cause, but it was too isolated in the zoological community. Our vision now is that we want all 20,000 employees, all of our brand ambassadors, to be engaged in it, as well as our 20 million [annual] guests. If we get even 5 percent of them engaged, that's a big number.

"Everyone loves animals, and future generations -- especially millennials -- are totally engaged in wanting meaningful experiences, wanting vacations that matter. And they want companies that are for a cause. Our mission is experiences that matter; our vision is to inspire people to protect animals and the wild wonders of the world. And that's right in the sweet spot of where society is heading."

So SeaWorld is pivoting to a focus on its overall conservation ethos and efforts and turning its parks into centers for more organic encounters with sea animals, and even experiences with such an approach in the details of mechanical rides at the parks. "We have lots of ways to make our parks fun: 800 species of animals, 150-plus rides, and shows and festivals," Manby said.

For instance, in queue lines at its tallest and fastest roller coaster in SeaWorld Orlando, the Mako Hyper Coaster now under construction, the park will include engaging messaging about the worldwide plight of sharks, whose fins are being cut off for Asian shark-fin soup by the tens of millions every year. "And at the exit from the ride, we'll have retail where people will be able to buy things that support anti-shark finning and other conservation efforts," Manby explained.

The huge directional change for SeaWorld was a collective decision and one that followed a management shakeup by Manby in February. The board was "incrediblly helpful to me and supportive during this process," he said. And Manby "talked with all of our owners about the decision," including the Blackstone Group private-equity outfit, which reduced its stake in SeaWorld to 25 percent in early 2014 from as high as 63 percent earlier.

But the CEO said he couldn't get unanimous employee support for SeaWorld's fundamental new direction and hadn't expected to do so. "You never make a decision this big and difficult and have everyone agree with you," he said.

Now that the decision has been made, Manby has embraced a role as chief cheerleader for transforming the park experience. "Even though we're phasing out the theatrical shows, I've challenged the new team that there is no reason the entertainment value has to be less," he said. "We need to challenge the guest's mind."

At the San Diego park, where SeaWorld already has phased out the traditional orca shows based on guest feedback, the company tested segments where "orcas are interacting with trainers, and the trainers are talking to the audience," Manby said. "And it scored almost as high as the entertainment show [overall] and twice as high in educational value. It still attracts guests."

Such moves will help tell "this amazing story we have as the largest rescue organization in America, with the goal of becoming the largest marine- and marine-mammal rescue organization in the world. Who wouldn't get behind that?" Yet for decades, Manby said, "Having our whales under human care was a barrier to that story getting out to people. It was a huge paradox."

Manby's strategy for communicating the change began with an op-ed column explaining it in the Los Angeles Times, a press release, media interviews following the announcement, and then an immediate tour of SeaWorld operations to explain the move and commiserate with employees.

"I hit all the parks within 48 hours and just sat and talked and listened to people," said Manby, whose efforts to complete a cultural transformation at Herschend were lauded by the company's owners. "They got to cry. But we also got to start giving them our vision for the future."

The move already is being ratified by some of SeaWorld's most important constituencies. Investors bid the stock up in the immediate aftermath, from $17.05 on March 15 to as high as $20.23 on Wednesday.

And critics are hailing the move too. One of them, the Humane Society of the United States, actually signed on as a partner with SeaWorld in conservation efforts after calling the switch a "game-changing commitment" by SeaWorld. Even Blackfish director Gabriela Cowperthwaite said it was a big step in the right direction.

And there were others. "Bravo to Joel Manby for seeing the writing on the wall and making decisions that could save the company, decisions no one before him was willing to make," enthused John Hargrove, who said he is a former senior killer-whale trainer at SeaWorld who quit in the wake of trainer deaths and has written on Vox.com. "I choose to support Manby and give him a genuine chance to do the right thing. If he backs up his words with actions, which I believe he has already begun doing, then this is a historic change and a win for the whales that so desperately deserve it."

But there are plenty of reasons for skepticism, not the least being that SeaWorld literally is removing the single thing with which the brand is most closely associated by the American public. Thus, the most important verdict will be how vacationers react to the changes at SeaWorld over time.

"I do think that as we transition out of one show and into another, people who loved the old show will come," Manby said hopefully. "But this is much more about the long-term arc of society, and it felt like we kept fighting an issue we weren't going to win on. This flips us to the positive and clears that barrier."